L is for Leaps and Bounds
by simanis
Summary: Sweeping leaves could be fun. A Summer Alphabet Challenge Story.


**L is for Leaps and Bounds.**

L is for Leaps and Bounds.

_Sweeping leaves could be fun._

Charlie was in the backyard in the process of sweeping up the fallen leaves. He had promised his dad that he'd do it and this afternoon after he came back from CalSci and he thought he'd better get to it before his dad remind him again and again and again.

He was surprised when he saw his brother's SUV coming into the driveway. _Friday afternoon? Umm, let him come in first._

He dashed inside the house and took out a bottle of beer. It was a hot afternoon after all, maybe he should wait for a while before sweeping those leaves.

"Dad! Anyone home?"

"In here, Don."

"Charlie? What are you doing in the kitchen? Don't tell me you're going to prepare dinner. I thought of getting both of you to the new joint, Las Palmas for some real good juicy steaks."

"Their steaks are raw to the point of dripping blood. Yeech, thanks but no thanks."

"Aha you don't know how to enjoy a real juicy steak." Don said.

Charlie looked at Don carefully noting his appearance but nothing seemed out of place. He opened the fridge and pull out a cold beer for Don.

"Er, no beer Charlie. "

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why no beer? You always come here and scrounge my beer." Charlie said looking for a reaction from Don.

"Whadya mean? I 'scrounge' beer from you? Sometimes I bring a six pack here, if you don't mind. Anyway, I scrounge beer from dad. He buys the beer. "

"You're correct in a sense, Dad buys the beer and groceries which I pay for."

"Well, ok, then next time I'll make sure to give dad the money to buy some beer for me."

"So why?"

"Why what, Charlie?"

"I mean why are you not having a beer?"

"Oh, I just had one."

"With whom?"

"None of your business. Can I just have a glass of water please and where's dad?"

"Dad's playing golf with his buddies."

"In the afternoon?"

"Yeah, started this morning. He should be back anytime now."

"Ok, whadya want to do?"

"I don't know about you but I've gotta sweep up the leaves in the back yard before dad bugs me to death. I was about to start, you wanna join me?"

"Nah. You go ahead, I want to lounge and laze around, doing nothing for a change. I'm off tomorrow."

"Off tomorrow? Umm, I wonder why?"

"What?"

"Nevermind."

After Charlie went out, Don walked upstairs to change out of his grimy clothes. He wanted to shower but he put it off, changing into his sweatpants and a tee. He checked himself; _yep he looked ok, nothing showing,_ and went down again. Since he was told by the medic to move about to deter the stiffness which was already setting in, Don decided to join Charlie out the back sweeping up the leaves.

He went out and stood near the koi pond to watch. Charlie was deep in concentration and working methodically, he had divided the large yard into quarters, one could literally see the 4 squares because of the borders made with the leaves. Leaves, leaves and more leaves everywhere and by the amount of them accumulated in the yard, one would have thought they have not swept it for weeks. If you looked closely however you could tell that some leaves were blown into the yard by the surrounding neighbor's trees.

As Don stood around and watched his brother work he shook his head. Everything about Charlie was math, even sweeping the leaves in the backyard.

This is Charlie, his young genius brother, the annoying little brat who used to follow him around the house, bugging him and wanting to show him the math problems. He didn't pay much attention to him then; he had wished a thousand times that he could reverse the clock and spent more time with him. Maybe if he did, he might be a semi genius in math. He shook his head, banish that thought!

They sort of lost touch along the way, Charlie was in Princeton and he was in Quantico training to be an FBI agent and then later he was posted in Fugitive Recovery. Even if they did talk sometimes on the phone it was just a short conversation.

For many months after he came back, he was still not in real touch with his brother's world of math. Don had came back when their mother was very ill, she since passed away, and he had developed a habit of coming back to his father's house to take a quick shower before getting back to work. A year after he'd come back and Charlie had bought his father's house, he still continued with that habit.

It was some three years ago, that fateful day, when he'd come back to shower he'd also brought along some documents and maps to run through before getting back to office. When he'd come back down and saw that Charlie was looking at his maps, he nearly blew his top. His father gently told him that Charlie did nothing, he was just looking at the map.

Charlie then asked him about his case to which he gave him some very brief details and Charlie surprised him no end, he told him that he could help him to locate the killer's place of origin. He showed him the water sprinkler in the garden and did some explanation about the water spreading out and from each drop he could do a calculation and find out where it started from. That confused Don and then Charlie had showed him.

From that day onwards they had progressed in leaps and bounds. With Charlie's math and equations, there were breakthroughs allowing his team to solve cases faster than ever before. Giant strides were taken by both of them gaining each other's respect in their own chosen professions. Charlie admired Don's dedication to his job, his camaraderie with his team and Don now looked at his brother in a different light, a full Professor at a very tender age, his utter devotion to math & numbers. Don also now looked at math in a very different way because of Charlie's explanations. Terry also got intimated by the math but after Charlie's explanation, whilst it was not really all clear, she had a better understanding of it.

He was caught up with Charlie's inspiration with leaps and bounds and it was a quantum jump with a radical change. It was like a metamorphosis, a leap across from the math ignoramus to the math savvy in the very short time. Not really a savvy but if he could understand and explained it to the third party what Charlie said, then he's at least half savvy.

There was no turning back. They began their journey of 'getting to know you' and to their father's great pleasure both of them got better and better as the days went by, no doubt there were arguments and disagreements but in the end they understood each other.

Their father said many a time that he was very proud to see both of them working together but he also voiced his concerns, worries that Charlie was getting too involved in Don's FBI work. On the other hand he understood his younger son's eagerness to work with the big brother. They both had gone from leaps and bounds to know each other again and had become great pals and buddies. Their love and respect for each other had also grown in leaps and bounds.

Once their father told him that his brother had always looked up to him and that he would do anything for him to gain his approval and respect. He'd just laughed at his father for he really hadn't believed him then. He learnt soon enough though that it was true and he sometimes had taken advantage of it.

He was now in awe at what Charlie could do, damn proud of him in fact, his young curly haired brother who still looked and dressed like a Uni student instead of a tenured Professor of Math. Looking at him now, sweeping leaves in jeans cut off at the knees and ruffled curly hair which needs a cut; he looked just like an ordinary school kid on vacation.

His love for his curly haired brother went beyond the leaps and bounds, his heart swelled with pride as vast as the mountains and with a smile from ear to ear he called out, "Charlie, I'll take the one quarter and you take three quarters."

"Ok that's fair enough, since you're not living here." Charlie smiled and they went on about their jobs companionably.

Don soon found out that sweeping leaves was not as easy as it seems. There's the sweeping, there's the scooping and there's the dumping the leaves in the dumpster. The last action was the problem, a great problem for him, until he got an idea. "Charlie, tell you what, I sweep and you gather and dump them in the dumpster."

"Why?"

"Faster this way, instead of both of us waiting to use the scoop." Don said putting on an earnest face. _Hey, don't get too smart bro_, he thought himself and started thinking of a way to bribe him if he finds out.

Charlie looked at Don suspiciously, he nearly could pinpoint the problem. Don had somehow hurt himself but where? He couldn't see any bruises, and Don was wearing sweat pants with a tee. Charlie smiled to himself and said, "How about I give you a hug for this very good suggestion and for helping me?" He then walked threateningly towards Don.

"Ok, ok you win, smart dork but you must promise me not to tell dad."

"What not to tell dad?" Alan said coming out from the house and both of them turned guiltily at their dad's voice.

Both of them were trying so hard to outsmart each other that they hadn't heard their father's car coming into the driveway.

"Charlie?"

Don gave him the eye.

"Dad, I'm not supposed to say, Ask Don."

"Don?"

"Er, er…" Don lifted a hand to scratch his head.

"Ok, I'll tell but don't blame me if Dad is not agreeable." Charlie looked at Don and Don was puzzled as to what Charlie was going to tell their father when he didn't even know what it was.

Charlie turned to Don putting his back towards their father and mouthed the words, "Tell me later? Yes or no?"

Don looked at him and gave him the evil eye again and said, "Ok."

"Don wanted to take us to Las Palmas for steak and I said no way, for I know they serve steaks still dripping blood. He said to take you there and not tell you what they serve."

"Donnie, you want to kill your old man with raw bloody steaks? You can eat it. Yeech, just thinking of it." Alan gave a shiver.

"Aw Dad, don't believe Chucky, you can get it well done or medium rare."

"Well, okay, we'll go but I'll have mine well done. You boys don't need any help here? I'll go and shower and rest for a while." Alan went inside the house.

"OK, I've covered up for you, so are you going to tell me or not?"

"We…were rounding up a suspect _andIfellfromthegroundfloortothebasement_."

"What! YOU FELL FROM THE GROUND FLOOR TO THE BASEMENT!" Charlie exclaimed.

"sh..sh..sh sh…" Don put out his hands to shush Charlie. But it was too late.

"DONNIE!"

The end.

**What Happened to Don **

(tag to L is for Leaps and Bounds)

He was checked over by the Medic and pronounced to have nothing broken or torn but would have some colourful skin for the next few days. There would probably be a bit of soreness and the medic told him to move about often so that his body would not become too stiff.

He could not escape with just the medic checking him out. Megan herself had personally taken him to the hospital to get him cleared for duty. He was given painkillers and was told to take two days rest for his aches and soreness which was expected to develop into full bloom by tomorrow. Back in the office after filling various reports, he thought of going back to his apartment but Megan had told him in no way he goes back there. He had to go back to Charlie's or else they would let Alan know about his fall.

Sheer blackmail he told her but the other two stood by her and David was even ready to give Alan a call. David had became a great fan of Alan's ever since that day he was shot in the arm during the Russian mob case, and so instead of resting at home, David had opted to stay in Charlie's house in pretence of 'resting' there. In actual fact, as a favour to Don, he was to stay there to look out for Alan and Charlie when the rest of the gang and Gary Walker were taking out the Russian. Alan had given David a very much appreciated home cooked meal and whilst having dinner, David saw that the Eppes were a very close and loving family.

Don had put up his hands and given in. "Ok, ok, you win. I'll go back to Charlie's." He'd cleared out his desk, taken two painkillers and bade the gang goodbye.

"I'll call later in the day." Megan called out after Don.

Don gave her a wave back and went off.

THE END

_My Thanks to Wendy for the beta._

_11/2007_

_A/N:_

_A great thanks to my beta Wendy who did some fingers dancing on the keyboard to correct my tenses._

_Thanks Wendy! **:D**_

_That's all for my Summer Challenge alphabet stories. Thank you all for reading._

_You've been a great audience, you know who you are, I dont, I just have the numb3rs._

_Hope you'll go and read my Don story, any reviews will be appreciated._

_Have a nice day!_

"Terima Kasih "

"Hsieh-hsieh"

"Thank-you"


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